The Rey Teves of my youth and beyond
by Karl M. Gaspar CSsR
Very early this morning (7 November), I got this text from a friend: Rey Teves died dis dawn…In ICU ysterday, sever pneumonia… During the course of the day, there were many texts sent by friends who knew Rey basically repeating the same information.
I had left my youth many years ago. But part of the memory of that period of my life came back after reading the text. That memory is of Rey standing on the stage of the Holy Cross Academy Boys Department, my high school alma mater in Digos City.
He played the guitar and sang Elvis Presley’s Teddy Bear complete with the hip movements and his impromptu variations of the song. We were estatic listening to him who was perhaps one of our first idols.
We were drawn to his songs and his electric presence on stage. He was the local celebrity who went from school to school. But no, his main purpose was not to entertain dreamy teen-agers. He was out to convince us to join the Student Catholic Action or SCA, which was the first youth-oriented mass movement that arose long before the student activist groups would sprout just before and after the imposition of martial law.
Set up to make the youth interested in connecting their Christian faith with the secular world, the SCA was an organization of students that was decidedly pro-establishment. It wasn’t meant to rock the boat; but its language was militaristic. (Sample: Its theme song began with these lyrics: “An army of youth, flying the standard of truth, we are marching for Christ the Lord, heads lifted high, Catholic action our pride and the cross our only sword, on earth’s battlefields…”)
But in the staid lanscape of the placid mid 1960s in small towns such as Digos, the SCA was our only window to a dynamic youth existence that promised a bit of fun and social action. Rey was the leader of the band; the flute player who would draw us out of our shy and insecure selves and get us to march after him towards an imagined sunrise full of promise for the future!
He actually didn’t play the flute; it was his guitar that accompanied him wherever he went. And we learned the songs he sang to us and made them our own. In his absence, we joined our cells for those weekly meetings and kept touch with our leaders like Rey. As we advance these days into the twilight of our years, we couldn’t think of high school without the SCA; and Rey was very much part of that memory.
Eventually, we said goodbye to high school and I landed at the Ateneo de Davao. It was a pleasant surprise to find Rey in the same school and meet other students who were with the SCA in their own respective high schools. We held on to our connections with the SCA as it was one of the recognized student organizations in campus. But Rey had moved on to other concerns outside of the campus. Following the Second Vatican Council, some of the priests in Davao began to also engage the youth in terms of social issues. This was the beginnings of the period of student activism which would led to the First Quarter Storm.
One of these priests was the late Fr. Paul Cunanan who came up with his own youth movement. Rey and a few others were the students leaders who were part of Fr. Paul’s circle. Elsewhere militant student groups sprouted like the KM, SDK, etc. Rey was more engaged outside the campus, so long after we graduated in college, he was still struggling to finish his degree.
Then came martial rule and our generation – the baby boomers whose young lives would be tested by the fire of martial law – was faced with the reality of oppression and the need to choose whether to condone or resist it. Even for those of us whose choice was resistance, there would be variations in terms of how far red we would go. Rey Teves was quite clear where he would stand: he would help advance various causes.
At Susana Building - one of the hubs of activism in the 1970s-80s in Davao City for those who chose to take the legal route in terms of resistance – I would encounter Rey once again. I was intially with the Philippine Business for Social Progress and we had links with the Banana Growers Foundation where Rey was moonlighting along with his close friends including Inday Santiago and the great writer – Fred Salanga.
A number of us working in Susana Building (including those of the Mindanao-Sulu Secretariat of Social Action (MISSSA) and the Citizen’s Council for Justice and Peace (CCJP) had organized ourselves into a theatre group known as Magdudulang Tabonon. We mounted plays for conscientization at a time when owing to censorship, there was little that media could offer to make people be aware of what was happening under martial rule. One time, we decided to mount a zarzuela, Buhi sa Kanunay. The play’s setting was the Katipunan years so that we could present this as a historical play and thus evade arrest by the military.
We needed someone who could be the play’s one-man chorus who could play the guitar and sing. He also needed to have a commanding presence on stage. There was only one choice for the role - Rey Teves, who we remember during our high school days as one who could hold the audience at the palm of his hand. Fortunately for us, Rey said Yes to our invitation. We all took risks with that theatre production; when we mounted it, our eyes were constantly fixed on the entrance just in case the military had come to arrest us all. They didn’t. The play was a success. Rey, once again, showed how it was to combine artistry and advocacy.
Owing to the pressures from the First Lady’s fund-raising schemes, PBSP ultimately had to close its Mindanao office. Before that happened, I had transferred to the Mindanao-Sulu Pastoral Conference Secretariat (MSPCS) that also had its office at the Susana Building. Then, there were no such things as non-governmental organizations (the acronym NGO would become popular only after EDSA I); there were legal institutions (LIs). There were also advocacies that already arose at that time. Rey was at the forefront of these advocacies and LIs. Along with his friends and colleagues, Rey helped set up CONSUMO DABAW, which was Davao City’s first institution promoting consumer rights. Later, they would set up the TACDRUP, one of the longest running NGOs of Mindanao.
After leaving MSPCS, I lost touch with Rey as I moved to Manila and later spent time in jail as a political prisoner. After being released from prison, I joined the Redemptorists and was mostly out of Davao City until I got assigned to our community in Bajada, Davao City in 2005. Thus from 1980 till 2005, I didn’t see much of Rey anymore. However, from mutual friends and an occasional encounter with Rey and with his wife, Mila, I would learn that his passion for advocacies remained if not intensified.
After dabbling in partisan politics and a stint in government as Congressperson, he expanded his horizon beyond Davao to embrace Mindanao causes. Like many of those engaged in social development work, he saw something very wrong with the over-centralized form of our government which had given rise to Manila imperialism. Even as Mindanao contributes a big share in the country’s Gross Domestic Product, very little money trickles down to the south for development purposes. Rey has seen too much underdevelopment in the south and was convinced something needed to be done to radically change this asymetrical situation with national politics. Along with other Mindanawons, Rey would address this issue first through fora and workshops and later through policy advocacies.
I managed to attend a few of the gatherings that he and his colleagues organized with the assistance of the Adenaeur Foundation. The battlecry finally got capsulized in the word – Federalism. Rey became a staunch supporter of this advocacy and did everything he could to make it a popular issue for all Mindanawons. Wherever there was a forum, a seminar-workshop, a conference and an informal gathering where the opportunity arose, Rey would passionately speak, nay pontificate, on the importance of federalism. While other Mindanawons would push a Mindanao independence movement, Rey and his group would advocate setting up federal states.
Interesting that eventually – in a rather ironic twist – Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her lackeys in Congress would use federalism as one reason to push for the Con-Ass. At least, it is a recognition that the time has come for federalism to be given a try; thus, tangentially patting the back of Rey and the rest of the federalism advocates. Indeed, as there seems to be a lacunae in terms of the peace talks, creative solutions to Mindanao’s underdevelopment state are so wanting. Rey will be missed in the fora that will take place in the future, especially after the May 2010 elections when, hopefully, there will be a stronger push to get federalism going.
But it is in one particular area that Rey will be missed by his friends. Lately, nostalgia has crept into the circles of the baby boomers. There have been many initiatives for reunions of friends and colleagues. Old friends do want to get in touch and will find many reasons to come and celebrate. Recently, there have been an increasing number of deaths among the generation of the baby boomers in Davao City who have been part of the social development circles since the 1960s. In these occasions, Rey’s presence was very much sought. Rey’s talent to entertain as well as of getting people to sing together is one of a kind. No reunion is complete without singing the songs of our youth. Meanwhile, he can turn funeral wakes into celebrations of life as he led the people in singing. In many of such wakes, Rey would make sure there is a resounding send-off ceremony for the soul ready to leave for heaven.
Question is: with Rey’s death, who can we ask to lead us in a resounding send-off at his funeral?
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